Lost in Embers (Rising From Ash Saga #1)

Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“ S o just one last question about Aidan, then I will drop it forever. Why him?” In other words, why not Dino?

“I have gone my whole life believing that I do not need someone to complete me, because I complete myself. I believed that I should be with someone who compliments me as I am. This trip has thrown me through a whirlwind on all my thoughts on love and life. Perhaps Aidan complements me as I am; we are so very different, but I also feel as though he completes me in a way I did not know was possible.

“It is like this whole time has been a puzzle, complete on the edges, holding all the bits in the middle together, yet when that final piece is placed, I’m stronger than ever and nothing can break me. He is my final piece. The one that I didn’t even notice was missing until it was put into place. We are destined to be together, and I know that is crazy considering he just left me and I don’t know him really. I know there must be a reason, one that I cannot see yet.

“He makes me believe there is more to life. He makes me believe in myself in a way that I didn’t think existed. I appreciate all that he has done for me in such a short amount of time. I appreciate him like I appreciate you. He has opened me up so easily. Above all that, I respect him. He has this greatness inside of him, incomparable to anything I have ever seen, and he makes me believe I have the same greatness within me. I just have to find it.

“I have loved many people and even on an occasion thought I was in love with someone. It wasn’t until now that I realize what it is to be in love. All the stars have aligned in a beautiful disaster.” The words ramble out of my mouth, and with a deep breath I relax back into my seat.

Dino makes no attempt to dispute anything that comes out of my mouth, but that doesn’t stop a sour look from crossing his face. After all, they are my feelings; no one can ever tell me how I feel. I’m the only one with the power to make myself happy, and now I just need to make the decisions that lead to my happiness.

As we taxi out, I rest my head alongside the window and just stare out, thinking about going home. Something odd is happening on the tarmac. There is a situation between a man in a long black coat and one of the baggage handlers. My eyes must deceive me when the coated man reveals his face.

Victor.

Sporting the same evil, dark black eyes that were glaring back at me in the bathroom mirror, he’s dressed in black from head to toe, with military-style boots on the outside of his pants. At the snap of his finger, two creatures appear beside him. Four-legged, like dogs, but without paws. Instead, they have what look like hands with long, green nails. They are covered in white fur, with no eyes that I can see from here, just black holes. They both have wolflike bodies and faces. Their curly tails reach the center of their bodies. What the hell are those things?

Victor makes eye contact with me, and for a second everything stops, including those growling hellhounds. Time pauses. He walks closer to me. Why do I have to be trapped on a plane? Just great. Stillness takes over me instead of panic. I just watch as he continues to now glide through the air and hovers outside my window. He has an emotionless face as he tries to read into mine.

My brother, here? Impossible. I turn to look at Dino, but he’s frozen in time along with everyone else on this plane. In that second, when I gaze back out the window, Victor has moved. He is back by the evil creatures and snapping his fingers. Suddenly, time resumes as the hellhounds bare teeth and attack the baggage man.

My screams awaken everyone on the plane from their trance, just in time to see the baggage man dying on the tarmac, with no one near him.

“What just happened?” Dino’s perplexed voice is barely there. “Why are you screaming?”

“Victor. I saw Victor.” Our plane takes off, unaffected by the man that lies there dying. This must be another dream. Sadly, I know it isn’t. Victor’s handprint remains on my window, a horrible reminder of what I have witnessed.

“Ava, what’s wrong?”

“I saw Victor kill that baggage man.” My pulse races and my breathing is heavy. Please, don’t be a panic attack. I press my hand against his print lingering on the window. How could my brother kill someone in cold blood? Shock overtakes my body, and I’m transplanted to another place… Not again …

Dark eyes are haunting over me. “You need to come with me.”

I’m pinned down and unable to move. Cable ties hold my feet in place, and brute arms pin me down from behind. Come with him? How can I even get away? Squirming to get away from the unrecognizable men isn’t working. The men wear black masks, and the one down near my feet has familiar eyes.

“I know you.” I know him from somewhere. I just need to look into those eyes a little longer or perhaps touch him to figure out where from. Another man enters the room, and he cocks his gun and points it to my head. It’s been freshly shot. The heat from the gun burns as it rests on my scalp, and some residue finds its way to my nose.

A hand covered in a towel comes to my face.

Chloroform. Must have been. That is the only thing that could make me pass out, without any recognition of what happened. I wake in the middle of nowhere. Safety is where I’m not. So, I walk and walk this dry desert, which looks as though it is on fire. Clouds of dust are orange, red, and yellow. Almost as though this is a fabricated desert, manmade for a specific reason.

I sense a pack of hunters walking in the distance. This is it. Kill or be killed, it has been programmed inside of me. My father’s voice speaks to me, telling me it is not a mirage; they do not exist in this desolate land, and camouflage will be my savior.

I lick my hands with whatever saliva I manage to get out of my mouth, I rub it on my face and place the multicolored sand on top. Quickly, I bury myself in the desert sand, knowing they are headed this way. As they approach, my senses are on high alert, making sure not to make one movement until they are just where I want them. Listening to their breathing and footsteps, they are getting close. Close enough.

The sand is one with my thoughts, and I can control it. I jump and the colors float around me in a tornado, shielding me from their sight. I motion through the cloud of sand and grab one woman’s gun and hit her across the face with it. She’s down but not dead. The tornado encompasses me once more, hiding me from the gunfire. I move my way up from the base of the tornado, all the way to the top. The sand moves and forms a small peephole for me as I float easily above the ground. There is a tall, brazen man, ready to fight. He may be big, but I’m faster. The other man is tending to the woman.

With a snap of my fingers, the tornado comes tumbling to the ground and I’m face-to-face with the nameless man. With one kick to the stomach, he’s subdued. The man tending to the woman looks at me and we have a mutual understanding that I will not kill them.

I run. Looking for a way out. Until a bomb goes off. I’m close enough to sense that I need to take cover. The closest thing to me is a large piece of wood that I run to, hoping to shield myself as the aftermath of the bomb is coming my way. In the form of a sandstorm. I brace myself for the impact and pull my shirt over my mouth to make sure I can breathe, but shrapnel hits the side of my face.

“Welcome to Philadelphia. On behalf of your flight crew, we would like to thank you for traveling on flight 871. The local time is 10:17 a.m., and the temperature is 50 degrees.” Groans come from every passenger on the flight. I don’t blame them for wanting to be back in the sun.

The flight attendant continues in her very perky voice, “For your safety and comfort, please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until the captain turns off the ‘fasten seatbelt’ sign…” Yada yada. I know the spiel. I had to say it for a long time, so I zone out until the end.

I need to learn to control whatever it is that is happening to me and stop passing out after the dreams, visions, whatever. It appears as though I’m the only one who witnessed the happenings before we took off; everyone is too calm to have just seen someone die. Those creatures tore that poor man apart.

“Come on, Ava, let’s get you home.” Dino is ready to get rid of me, that much is obvious, but he still continues to be a gentleman and carry my bag off the plane for me.

“You didn’t see that, did you?” I don’t know how it is possible I’m the only one that witnessed what happened.

“See what? Ava, are you okay? You have been acting differently lately.” He stops me mid Jet Bridge to look into my eyes.

“I’m fine. I just saw… never mind.” I take his hand in mine and lead him into the main terminal. There, across all the terminal screens, is the news, showing a man dead on the tarmac. The same man I saw die. I gape at the screen.

“Ava, is this what you saw?” Dino points to the screen, and I take a big gulp and nod. Now he wants to hear more? Now he believes me?

The news broadcast reports that the man was attacked viciously by an unknown animal, but the teeth marks are so large that they think they were left by a bear. Overall, you can tell they are uncertain.

“An animal killed that man, not Victor. You must be in shock.” Now he’s on Victor’s side? He heard everything I said but didn’t acknowledge it before.

“I know what I saw.” Wow, I should really shut up before he has me dropped off at the nearest hospital or tells my mother I’m losing my mind. Am I going crazy?

The walk to the car seems to take forever and is marched in complete silence. The news claims a bear did this. Most certainly not, more like a white panther-wolf hybrid with green fungus talons. I’m not sure what to make of all this. Dino is standing there, holding the passenger door open for me as he clears his throat loudly to get my attention. Now I keep standing in a reverie. Great. Shake it off. I scoot into the car, and he shuts the door behind me.

When he enters the other side, he needs to break the silence. “I hope you are okay. You must be cold.”

“I saw some animal attack, I guess it could have been a bear. My mind has been all over the place, and I have been thinking about Victor a lot lately. Perhaps that’s why I thought I saw him there. I just need some rest.” My words are not honest to myself, but at least they will give Dino peace of mind for the time being. Where is Aidan when I need him? Victor released those malevolent hounds; he would believe me.

I’m actually a bit warm, even though I’m not wearing a jacket. I walked through the entire parking garage in a tank top, shorts, and flip-flops yet feel really hot. Dino puts his jacket on me, insisting I’m coming down with something and that I’m still in shock. The whole car ride to my house he makes sure to harp on the safety kit he gave me for my car, but I’m just thinking of that package wrapped in twine.

Dino decides not to stay and just drops me off since he has things to do. At least I asked, but in all honesty, we have spent a lot of time together these past two weeks, and he probably wants to kill me. I know I need space from him, but I still thought it was nice to be polite .

I wave Dino off and watch him drive down the long driveway before I turn to skip right up the front porch steps. The front door swings open, carrying with it an electrical wind, similar to what is running through my body, and knocks me to the ground mid skip. Before I can prop myself up, Laila barrels toward me and jumps on me. She puts her front paws on either side of my face and places wet kisses all over me. I let out a giggle. No one will ever love me as much as this dog does.

“Are you special too, girl?” Since the door just swung open, at this point I’m not ruling anything out. She sits up and barks at me. Is she answering my question? I shrug it off and continue into the house. I’m just imagining all sorts of things.

“Mum!” The quiet is my response, but I pry once more. “Are you home?” The creaks of this old house answer my question. Laila is by my side, leaning against my leg. She barks loudly and heads upstairs.

The same powerful electric wind closes the door before I have the chance to. Laila’s persistent barking at the top of the stairs is unlike her, and I decide to listen to my blue-eyed pup. Light on my feet and swiftly, I’m at the top of the stairs in a second, but Laila has disappeared down the hall and paws at my door.

The door opens without my touch, and this house doesn’t feel much like home anymore, more like a cemetery of secrets, making me feel like I’m sneaking around my own house. Unsure of these new feelings of my home, I drop my bag to the side and take a cautious look around. My room, however, it is still my comfortable safe place. The place where all my secrets are held, and now I have another secret to add to the pile. As soon as I walk through the door, it is like an enchantment falls over me, causing my chest to relax and my heart to finally slow. Laila is pawing at a loose floorboard; she must have been working on that piece for a while. The scissors within arm’s reach are perfect to force open the floorboard, making sure not to break it so I can put it back into place.

There under the floorboard is a brown package, wrapped with twine, covered in dust. The same package that has been seen time and time again in my visions. My fingers and my mind operate at two different speeds, and mentally I can’t unwrap the package fast enough. First, placing the familiar note off to the side, careful not to rip it as it appears delicate after an unknown number of years under there. Upon opening the box, it contains a letter and a smaller box. The envelope is clear, Read me first, Ava . My hands start to shake as I open a letter that can hopefully provide me with all I need to know.